Night Bumping

Sunday night, I was startled by a big thump right over my head, in the boys' bathroom. The one only used by Hick now, during daylight hours, when I am in the master bathroom. In fact, that thump repeated itself.

It wasn't so much a THUMP, which implies a muffled plop. It was more of a CLANG-POUND. Like a monkey wrench falling into a cast iron claw foot bathtub. Which we don't have. Oh, I'm pretty sure Hick has a monkey wrench...just not a cast iron claw foot bathtub. The one in the boys' bathroom is a tub/shower enclosure with sliding doors. Probably fiberglass or plastic. I don't know my plumbing materials.

Anyhoo...I'm used to thumping and bumping and footsteps and the sound of someone turning over in Genius's bed. Even some disco-feet milling a while back. They might startle me momentarily, but they don't really get my hackles up. This CLANG-POUND made me pause. And think about whether I should be scared. Because it was something different, I suppose. It came a little after midnight. Maybe midnight-twenty. I'm often not in my OPC (Old People Chair) at that time, leaving my lair around 1:00 a.m.

Also, either Saturday evening or Sunday afternoon, I'd heard something else out in the basement area. A kind of click, but not the one The Pony and I used to hear. The one sounding like a pop-top soda can being opened. I solved that one, you know, while sitting on the toilet. It was the wall clock in the NASCAR bathroom. I don't know why The Pony and I never figured out that sound came every hour, as the hands reached a certain location.

Anyhoo...as with all things creepy around here, you can't dwell on them or you'll go crazier. So I kind of make a mental note, and see if there's going to be recurrences, or if they're one-offs. Monday, Hick was running around, NOT-seeding the grass in the front yard. I was left to my own devices all afternoon. I did not notice anything amiss in my comings and goings between my dark basement lair, the mini fridge, and the NASCAR bathroom.

Around 6:30, I went upstairs to make supper for Hick. When I came out of my office, an anomaly caught my eye.

A DOOR ON HICK'S GUN CABINET WAS STANDING OPEN!

I think I stopped dead in my tracks. My jaw might have dropped. No doubt my heart rate increased. I went past the open door, giving it a closer look. WHAT IN THE NOT-HEAVEN! Doors don't just open by themselves. Though I will say that this door or the other one has done it twice, when The Pony was still living at home. He's the one who always went downstairs first, and he noticed it. Asked me about it. I knew nothing.

The Pony had closed it. And the next day, it was open again. After the second closing, it has stayed shut. So that's almost two years that The Pony's been gone off to college, with no acting up by this cabinet door. And before that, we lived here for 17 years without that door opening.

I stood at the bottom of the stairs and hollered up to Hick. To ask if he'd been down in the basement looking at his gun case. He said he hadn't been down there at all on Monday. So...it happened between the time I last was at the mini fridge around 4:00, and 6:30 when I came out of my office.

No, I did not bump the cabinet while at the mini fridge. I'm at the mini fridge at least four times a day, putting part of my lunch in there until I'm ready for it, taking out a bottle of Diet Coke, putting back half a bottle of Diet Coke, and getting that half bottle out again. I have never bumped into that cabinet. My feet stay flat on the floor. Shuffle, actually. It's not like I kick out a leg when I bend over.

I told Hick not to touch that cabinet if he came down. That I was going to get some pictures. To prove it happened, you know. I was going to wait until daytime, but since the light doesn't reach that area much anyway, I took them in the middle of the night. Kind of creepy. One didn't even show up on my phone the next morning, even though I'd taken it and looked at it to see if I was keeping it. So I had to take it the next night. Here it is:

Is it just me, or is that door open WIDER than in the first picture? Creepy. Plenty of room there, people, for me to stand and transfer stuff in and out of Mini Frig. See the press-down tiles? That's 3 feet. And my butt is too high to hit that door when I bend over. And not so big that it hits the gun case, either!

Here's a pic taken from the door of my dark basement lair.

Don't judge! It's a partially-finished basement, by cracky, and I'm a slovenly housekeeper.

Let the record show that this is Hick's steal-me gun cabinet. He puts a couple guns in there so if anyone breaks in, they'll take them and not look for the good guns, which are locked up in a gun safe with the handguns. He's a bit of a collector, our Hick. I'm sure you would never have guessed that. I don't know why he doesn't keep them ALL locked away, but that's just Hick's logic.

Anyhoo...this door-opening activity is kind of a creepfest. I'm not liking it.

Not sure what's going on here, but I've been leaving it open. To see if it closes itself, perhaps. Or maybe because I don't want to find it open again.

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Okay, the supernatural plot thickens. I just emailed myself a replacement picture of the one that disappeared, and another one, taken from my office door. Imagine my surprise, upon saving those photos to New Delly's Pictures, to find the OTHER two pictures missing! The ones taken of the front and back of the open cabinet door. When they'd been there last night, and I'd even put them in the draft of this post. A search revealed that those two photos (thank goodness I'd named, them, instead of relying on those random numbers that my phone gives them) are now classified as Files. I never would have found them. Even though I could have re-emailed them to myself. SO...I saved those two in Pictures again, where they showed up as COPIES.

Not sure what's going on here...
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